In three consecutive blog-posts, I have dealt with the argument Craig Evans considers to be the strongest in showing that Morton Smith forged the Clement letter. According to Evans, Morton Smith showed beforehe found the Clement letter interest in certain themes which are found in the letter. I find Evans’ assertiveness to be unsupported.

There are however many other arguments presented by Evans which he believes lend strength to the forgery hypothesis. Some have been so thoroughly refuted before, that I leave them aside for the time being. But Evans makes at least a few points regarding Stephen Carlson and the handwriting issue which I cannot resist to comment upon.

The debate over handwriting analysis requires a few comments. In his 2005 publication Stephen Carlson, assisted by a professional handwriting expert, concluded that Morton Smith penned the three pages of Greek text found at the back of the seventeenth-century edition of the letters of Ignatius. Other scholars have challenged these findings. Dismissing Carlson’s analysis, Hershel Shanks asked two Greek-speaking handwriting experts to compare samples of Smith’s Greek with the Greek of the Mar Saba find. One expert concluded that Smith did not write the Clementine letter. The other expert concluded that he did. The former submitted a written report, which Shanks has posted on the Biblical Archaeology Society web page. The latter expert has not yet submitted a written report. The appeal to native Greek-speakers has not resolved the controversy.

Although Carlson does not regard himself as a handwriting expert per se, his expertise in evaluating documents, as well as procuring assistance and expert advice, should not be quickly dismissed (as I think Shanks has done). Novum Testamentum, a highly respected international journal devoted to the critical study of the New Testament, recently published an article, in which Carlson’s conclusion that “Archaic Mark” (Greek NT ms 2427 = Chicago ms 972) is a modern forgery has been vindicated. This manuscript, written on what at one time was believed to be 14th century parchment, deceived the likes of Edgar Goodspeed, Ernest Cadman Colwell, Kirsopp Lake, and Kurt and Barbara Aland, scholars well versed in ancient Greek manuscripts and hands. “Archaic Mark,” under the number 2427, appears in the list of miniscules in the two standard critical editions of the Greek New Testament. In these editions it is dated to the 14th century, evidently on the basis of the presumed age of the parchment, as well as the paleography. Carlson, however, concluded that although the parchment is old, perhaps dating to the 14th or 15th century, the handwriting is modern and the forger, who imitated 14th century Greek penmanship remarkably well, used Philipp Buttmann’s 1860 edition of the Greek New Testament as his base text. As reported in the recent issue of Novum Testamentum, scientific testing has confirmed Carlson’s conclusion. The ink was found to contain a chemical that was not in use prior to 1874 and Carbon 14 has dated the parchment to the 16th century. It is now believed that the manuscript was produced in the early 20th century. Once again handwriting analysis was at best uncertain. Internal considerations, including evidence of anachronism, pointed to forgery. Scientific testing provided confirmation.

The essential arguments made by Evans in this attempt to rescue Carlson’s handwriting analysis are:

1) Stephen Carlson concluded based on the handwriting that Morton Smith penned the Clement letter.

2) He was assisted in his conclusion by a professional handwriting expert.

3) Carlson’s analysis should not so easily be dismissed since Carlson managed to correctly claim that the so-called Archaic Mark is a modern forgery.

4) By comparing samples of Smith’s Greek with the Greek of the Mar Saba find, two Greek-speaking handwriting experts came to opposite conclusions. One expert concluded that Smith did write the letter and the other that he did not.

But Evans is ill-informed. It has for a long time now been known that the “evidence” Carlson relied upon when suggesting that the letters were drawn rather than written and that all kinds of signs of forgery could be seen in the document, like tremors and ink blobs, all were due to the poor images he used. When these printed images in Morton Smith’s book were heavily magnified, they gave rise to optical illusions which misled Carlson into believing that the scribe’s hand shook because of slow writing. Se my articles Tremors, or Just an Optical Illusion? and Reclaiming Clement’s Letter to Theodoros. Besides, Carlson was at the time a patent attorney with no experience or training in the field of questioned document examination.

Evans also tries to strengthen Carlson’s conclusion by saying that he was assisted in his conclusion by a professional handwriting expert. This was for sure what Carlson said himself, but later it turned out that he had misled everybody by withholding vital information regarding this professional handwriting expert by the name of Julie C. Edison. Already in April 2010 Scott G. Brown and Allan J. Pantuck consulted Edison and she gave an entirely different description of her contribution. Brown and Pantuck presented their results in the article Stephen Carlson’s Questionable Questioned Document Examination, and they summarize their findings as such:

The people who read Edison’s letter on the internet [published by Carlson] would have been far less impressed had they known that Carlson’s consultant is unable to read Greek, that she met with him for only a few hours, that they looked exclusively at halftone reproductions of Smith’s photographs, that she disavows having expressed an opinion on the manuscript’s authenticity, and that her positive comments were prefaced by the “most important” observation that the absence of “known standards” in Carlson’s analysis violates one of the “fundamentals” of forgery detection. Clearly he hoped that this letter would discourage concerns about the objectivity, validity, and competence of his handwriting analysis, but now that we know the omitted contents and the manner in which he suppressed them, he has ultimately made us more dubious about these things than ever.

It is not hard to imagine that a handwriting analysis by a properly qualified questioned document examiner would look very different from what we see in The Gospel Hoax.

Could Evans really be unaware of this? He is after all acting as an expert on Secret Mark and that Edison did not support Carlson’s assertion has been known for one and a half year now. Or could it be that Evans is careless with the facts in the same way as he was in Fabricating Jesus, where he wrote that not only did Edison assist Carlson in analyzing the “color” photographs, but “experts [emphasize mine] in the science of the detection of forgeries [were given] the opportunity to analyze the handwriting of the document and compare it with samples of the handwriting of the late Professor Smith?”[1]

Evans made the same kind of statement in Lee Strobel’s book The Case for the real Jesus:

Once again there were according to Evans experts involved, when in fact at that time no expert at all had evaluated the handwriting; not even the one Carlson said had validated his results.

Evans is trying to support his view that the letter is a forgery by referring to distinguished scholars who also believe that the letter is a forgery. He for example says that the “Harvard alumnus and distinguished scholar of Gnosticism Birger Pearson stated that he now believes the Clementine letter to be a hoax”. Pearson expressed his view on this issue in 2008 in “The Secret Gospel of Mark: A 20th Century Forgery,” Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion 4 (2008), article 6, pp. 1–14.

But in 2009, after reading my articles on Carlson’s flawed methods for examining the handwriting, Pearson wrote the following:

Also this Evans seems to be unaware of. Be that as it may, Evans is not taking into account the fact that Carlson based his study on inferior images which misled him (Carlson has not made any official comments on the issue of the handwriting since I published my articles; he has consequently chosen not to reply to the criticism) and that Edison was neither qualified to provide an opinion on this text, nor did she do that.

Point 3, that Carlson’s analysis should not so easily be dismissed since he correctly managed to claim that the so-called Archaic Mark is a modern forgery, is in itself a remarkable attempt to save Carlson’s so-called handwriting analysis. Actually, the issue of Archaic Mark has nothing whatsoever to do with the question of Carlson’s analysis of the handwriting of the Clement letter. Stephen Carlson may be an intelligent person, a brilliant scholar who has made brilliant discoveries. Still, he was wrong in his handwriting evaluation since he based it on erroneous photographs (i.e. printed images) and he misled everybody by presenting Edison’s letter cropped so that it appeared as if she supported his analysis. It does not matter if he is right on the issue of Archaic Mark or even if Secret Mark is a forgery. His conclusions are still flawed since they are based on incorrect observations – no matter how vigorously Evans is defending him and telling us not to dismiss his handwriting analysis so easily.

Evans is correct in saying that the two Greek-speaking handwriting experts came to the opposite conclusions when it came to deciding if Smith had written the text or not. Yet he says that one of the experts, i.e. Agamemnon Tselikas, “has not yet submitted a written report”. This Tselikas did in May this year and the paper by Evans was presented at the Toronto conference a month earlier.

It is though not entirely correct that they came to different conclusions by comparing samples of Smith’s Greek with the Greek of the Mar Saba find. Venetia Anastasopoulou did compare the writing of the Clement letter to a number of examples of Smith’s Greek handwriting, and she came to the conclusion that based on the presented material, Morton Smith most probably did not write the Clement letter. Agamemnon Tselikas did not make such a thorough evaluation by comparing the handwriting, but mainly evaluated the writing in itself. He could not find anyone from Mar Saba with that particular hand and based on how some of the letters were drawn he did not think that it was written by a Greek-speaking monk. He therefore suggested that the letter is a forgery, and for other reasons (which to me seem quite obscure) he concluded that the most likely forger was Smith. When it came to the issue of Smith’s handwriting, Tselikas only made this conclusion:

A comparison of the handwriting of the Greek letters of Morton Smith with the handwriting of Clement’s letter can not give significant evidence that Morton Smith is the scribe, and this because as imitation, certainly the scribe of the letter would not use the own personal style. Nevertheless, some factors point to Morton Smith.

Tselikas then presents six comparative examples which are far from identical. Although I of course cannot challenge Tselikas’ expertise, I do find his conclusions to be quite extraordinary. He is saying that you cannot get any significant evidence by comparing the handwriting of the Clement letter with that of Morton Smith since an impersonator would not write in his own personal style. But is not this what a questioned document examiner to a certain degree of probability is supposed to decide by comparing an allegedly forged text to that of other handwriting samples?

Evans summarizes this issue by writing:

Where does this leave us with regard to Smith’s Mar Saba find? With uncertain and conflicting handwriting analysis. Carlson and two handwriting experts, one English-speaking and one Greek-speaking, think Smith wrote the document in question. Another Greek-speaking handwriting expert thinks he did not. Which conclusion is correct?

But the fact is that there has only been one handwriting analysis done in which Smith’s own handwriting has been thoroughly compared to that of the letter, and that analysis showed it to be highly unlikely that Smith could have written the text. Carlson’s analysis should be entirely dismissed because he is not a trained expert and besides made his analysis on distorted images. Edison should also be dismissed, since she is not qualified to evaluate Greek text and did not even analyze the text. Tselikas’ judgment is of course valid. But when it comes to deciding if Smith could have written the Clement letter in his own hand, also Tselikas fails to make (or refrains from making) any serious contribution since he has not presented an in depth analysis based on a comparison between the Clement letter and Smith’s Greek writing.

Craig Evans believes that Clement’s letter to Theodoros is forged and that the forger is Morton Smith. The reasons for this, or what he above all finds most troubling, is one circumstance—namely “that themes of interest to Professor Smith, as seen in his publications before the finding of the Clementine letter, are found in the Clementine letter”. Evans then emphasizes two themes which he believes are the best examples. They are “(1) The “mystery of the kingdom of God” and prohibited sex, and (2) Markan materials omitted from Mark that exhibit Johannine traits.”

In the previous two posts (here and here) I examined Evans’ claim regarding the first theme; that Morton Smith linked the “mystery of the kingdom of God” to prohibited sex and that the first of the two quoted fragments from Secret Mark was describing a sexual scene in which Jesus and the youth were involved. I rejected both these interpretations. This time I will look into Evans’ second example regarding Smith’s prior suggestion that there would be “Markan materials omitted from Mark that exhibit Johannine traits”.

Craig Evans writes:

The second unusual feature that Smith surmised was that the evangelist Mark may well have omitted materials that contained Johannine traits. In his 1955 review of Taylor’s commentary Smith speaks of the possibility that the evangelist Mark may have omitted material. This, of course, is the point at issue in Clement’s Mar Saba letter—material omitted from the Markan Gospel. (Craig Evans, Morton Smith and the Secret Gospel of Mark, p. 12)

Evans starts by saying that Smith in “his 1955 review of Taylor’s commentary … speaks of the possibility that the evangelist Mark may have omitted material”. Now, first of all, how amazing would it really be if Smith had suggested such a thing? Is not this a fairly reasonable suggestion and one which must have been put forward by many? After all, Mark’s gospel is the shortest of the four gospels with lot of things missing if one compares it to the other gospels.

Anyway, in the footnote to this (42) Evans writes:

Smith, “Comments,” 35: Whatever did not serve Mark’s interests, “he would leave out as uninteresting, even if he did not deliberately censor it.” Recall also “Image of God,” 487, where Smith speaks of material that “has come down to us heavily censored.”

Taylor’s book is a commentary to the Gospel of Mark, and Smith is making a review of Taylor’s work. He describes his review as such:

TAYLOR’S WORK will influence the study of Mk. for years to come. Therefore it deserves such detailed criticism as the following, which should be considered a tribute to the book’s importance and to the great learning from which that importance derives. These, however, will be obvious to every reader; therefore this article is devoted to points which seemed to deserve correction rather than praise. (Morton Smith, Comments on Taylor’s Commentary on Mark, HTR, Vol. 48, No. 1, Jan., 1955, p. 21)

The part Evans is referring to is a comment upon Mark 6.6b-13 where Taylor writes:

“The narrative itself” (of the sending out of the twelve) ”is redactional. . . . Mark has no real appreciation of the immense importance of the event. . . . He does not tell us what the issue is. He records that the Twelve went out to preach, but does not relate their message apart from the phrase ἵναμετανοῶσιν, and he has only vague ideas concerning their experiences and the results of the Mission”. (Morton Smith, Comments on Taylor’s Commentary on Mark, HTR, Vol. 48, No. 1, Jan., 1955, p. 33–34)

Smith regards Taylor’s statement that this narrative is redactional and that Mark does not appreciate the importance of the event, to be “true”. He says that Mark “not only knows nothing about the preaching adventures of the twelve, but does not even realize the importance of their mission to the course of events in Jesus’ life.” He also says that “it is necessary, in estimating the reliability of a tradition, not only to look for little, lifelike details, but also to notice major misunderstandings, errors, and the things which the author does not know.” Still Smith believes that “the tradition which governed the ordering of events in this part of Mk. may have been more reliable than T. believes” and he then gives examples of this. Smith thinks that the execution of John the Baptist would have worried Jesus and that it …

… would then be understandable that Jesus should take to the open country for a little rest (6.31). It is equally understandable that ‘Mark himself does not represent the movements of Jesus as a flight from Herod’ (p. 308). Mk. was remote from the historical situation, his interests were those of the Church of his day, and whatever did not serve those interests – e.g., whatever historical framework his sources may have contained – was just what he would leave out as uninteresting, even if he did not deliberately censor it. (Morton Smith, Comments on Taylor’s Commentary on Mark, HTR, Vol. 48, No. 1, Jan., 1955, p. 35)

It is accordingly Taylor’s original assumption that the story of the sending out of the twelve is redactional and that Mark “has no real appreciation of the immense importance of the event” and only have vague ideas concerning the disciples’ experiences, that leads Smith to conclude that Mark would leave out as uninteresting those things which did not serve the interests of the Church of his day. This is a deduction Smith makes from his idea that the tradition on which Mark is relying is more reliable than Taylor believes. But why this would be a sign of Smith having unique ideas that would come true in the Mar Saba letter is something which at least I have difficulty understanding. Is there anyone who believes that the gospel authors wrote down everything they had heard of?

Craig Evans continues:

Smith also discusses Mark’s use of a source with “Johannine traits.” This is precisely what the first and long quotation of Secret Mark is—a passage with Johannine traits (cf. John 11, the raising of Lazarus) that had been omitted from public (i.e., canonical) Mark. (Craig Evans, Morton Smith and the Secret Gospel of Mark, p. 12–13)

In the footnote (43) to this statement, Evans writes:

Smith, “Comments,” 26: “ . . . what one would expect of a source with other Johannine traits” (and earlier on this page: “They have many points of contact with Jn.”).

But once again is Smith only reacting to Taylor’s analysis of the story of the healing of the paralytic at Capernaum in Mark 2. Taylor writes that “[t]he reference to forgiveness at a point where one expects the word of healing is abrupt” and that the “inference seems justified that Jesus traced the man’s plight to sin and believed that his spiritual restoration was a primary and indispensable condition to recovery.” But Smith believed that “[t]he introduction to the section supposes that two stories have been combined” and that “[s]uch a contradiction in an ancient document would lead one to suspect composite authorship”.

Smith continues to say that both authors may be wrong and that this “is suggested by the peculiarities of the Streitgespräche [contradictions] in which this story occurs”. As Evans correctly says, Smith then writes that “[t]hey have many points of contact with Jn” and Smith gives a number of examples to prove his point:

For instance, they contain the only passages in Mk. (2.10 & 28) in which Jesus prior to his trial is represented as using ‘the Son of Man’ publicly with apparent reference to himself. (In 8.38 the phrasing is such as to make the hearers think he is speaking of someone else.) In Jn. Jesus uses the term of himself publicly and frequently (v. esp. chs. 5 & 6 and 12.23–34). Other points of contact are Jesus’ supernatural knowledge of men’s hearts (Mk. 2.8 // Jn. 2.24 f.), his command to the paralytic (Mk. 2.11 // Jn. 5.8), the bridegroom metaphor (Mk. 2.19 // Jn. 3.29) and above all the use of miracles as a proof of his divine com- mission (Mk. 2.10, cf. Jn. 5.36 &c.) and the early plot against Jesus’ life motivated by his healing on the Sabbath (Mk. 3.6 // Jn. 5.16 ff.). Now two characteristics of Jn.’s style are sudden change of subject and use of apparent non sequitur. Using a miracle to break off an argument is just what one would expect of a source with other Johannine traits. Therefore its occurrence here need not be explained by the hypothesis that two stories have been combined. But if it is a Johannine trait, what lies behind it is probably allegory or deliberate Johannine obfuscation, not psychological diagnosis. John’s Jesus did not trace all afflictions to sin (Jn. 9.3). (Morton Smith, Comments on Taylor’s Commentary on Mark, HTR, Vol. 48, No. 1, Jan., 1955, p. 26)

I quoted this lengthy passage just to show how many similarities there are between Mark 2 and the Gospel of John. To claim that Smith by referring to such an obvious observation; one which almost every scholar in the field must be aware of, should have revealed that he forged the Clement letter is quite remarkable. Of course he knew that there were “points of contact” between John and Mark. By referring to this obvious fact, he was reacting to Taylor’s hesitation to acknowledge that two stories have been combined. That’s it!

Evans’ further claim that Smith would have suggested that “Mark may well have omitted materials that contained Johannine traits”. This however is not true. In the same way as regarding the mystery of the Kingdom of God and forbidden sexuality, Evans picks and chooses from different parts and tries to present the material as if Smith would have presented it all at one time.

But in the first example Smith only said that Mark omitted material, and he did not refer to anything Johannine. And in the second example Smith noticed that there are parallels between Mark and John, but he never said that Mark omitted anything. So Smith never said that “Mark may well have omitted materials that contained Johannine traits”. That is Evans’ own invention.

Evans also refers to Watson:

Watson comments: “Clement’s letter confirms Smith’s surmise that Mark may have ‘deliberately censored’ his sourcematerial, and that this source-material may have included proto-Johannine elements.” Quite so. (Craig Evans, Morton Smith and the Secret Gospel of Mark, p. 13)

Yet, Smith said the exact opposite, namely that Mark “would leave out as uninteresting” whatever did not serve the interests of Mark’s church “even if he did not deliberately censor it.” So, Watson claims that Smith would have said that Mark “’deliberately censored’ his sourcematerial” and Evans agrees (Quite so), although Smith said that he did not do that!

Evans’ third example is taken from Smith’s 1958 article The Image of God. He quotes a (cautiously cropped) section from the pages 486 and 487, and I give it in full beneath with the parts quoted by Evans marked in bold text:

Of these four bodies of evidence the works of the Biblical tradition, the Jewish literature of pagan style, the testimonia concerning Jews, and the archaeological material no one is complete by itself. Each must be constantly supplemented by reference to all the others. And each carries with it a reminder that the preserved material even when accessible represents only a small part of what once existed. By their very existence, they demonstrate how much has been lost; by the variety of the material they preserve, they prove the extent of our ignorance and tacitly warn of the danger of supposing that what is not to be found in them was never to be found at all.

This supposition would be dangerous in any field of ancient studies, but it is especially dangerous in the study of Judaism, because Jewish material has come down to us heavily censored. The censorship has been double an external censorship by Christian authorities and a domestic censorship by Jews. (The domestic censorship we have seen above, at work in Exodus Rabba, in the material collected by Hoffmann as Midrash Tannaim, and in the Targum on Psalms.) What material we have, is only such as got through this double sieve. Yet even this preserved material, as we have seen, testifies consistently to the hellenization of ancient Judaism. What, then, would have been the testimony of the material which has disappeared? We cannot be sure. (Morton Smith, The Image of God: Notes on the Hellenization of Judaism, with Especial Reference to Goodenough’s Work on Jewish Symbols,” BJRL 40 (1958): p. 486–487)

So, Smith is accordingly warning us to be cautious before we jump to conclusions by “supposing that what is not to be found in them was never to be found at all”. The “preserved material … represents only a small part of what once existed” and there is accordingly a lot of material which “has been lost”.

Evans asks the rhetorical question: “What ‘would have been the testimony of the material which has disappeared?’” He then provides us with an answer: “In one case we no longer need to ask this question. We now know. The Mar Saba Clementine provides us with some potentially shocking testimony, which almost disappeared, had it not been for Smith’s amazing discovery.”

But honestly, is this an argument in favor of Smith having forged the Mar Saba letter? The fact (and I use the word “fact”) that most of the works written in antiquity are lost, must be a well-known fact to almost every scholar in the field. It is so obvious that it normally goes without saying. That Smith emphasizes this circumstance is all due to him making a point. He is investigating the evidence for hellenization of Judaism; especially when it comes to regarding “man as an image of God“. He therefore examines the preserved written sources, but also in a true scholarly way is cautious and reminds us that it represents only a small part of what once existed.

Now, if this is how things work, then every scholar needs to be extremely guarded in what he says. If I myself, God forbid, in the future would make a discovery with a similar content and of a similar magnitude as the one Smith made, I am bound to be accused of having forged it, since also I have written that only a small part of the rich literature of Antiquity has survived; as also I have speculated that the author of the Gospel of Mark may have left out material and of course have noticed that there are points of contact” between “John” and “Mark”.

In the previous post I examined Craig Evans’ attempt to link the mystery of the kingdom of God to forbidden sexuality in Secret Mark and came to the conclusion that the text does not support such an interpretation, as Jesus and the youth according to the preserved text of Secret Mark are not said to be involved in anything sexually. If so, you cannot claim that Morton Smith already before his discovery showed interest in subjects which are supported by the discovery.

But we could also investigate if Smith really linked the mystery of the kingdom of God to forbidden sexuality. In order to link these subjects, you must assert that Smith made a point of the mystery of the kingdom of God having something to do with forbidden sexuality. This is the real issue to be dealt with.

It is repeatedly said by different people, and now by Craig A. Evans, that Morton Smith “linked Mark 4:11 (‘To you is given the mystery of the kingdom of God . . .’) with secrecy and forbidden sexual activity”. But is this really so?

This argument is quite tricky to deal with. The reason for this is mainly due to the fact that Morton Smith made no real linkage between the mystery of the kingdom of God and secrecy and forbidden sexual activity. But since he mentions these things in close connection to each other, it might seem as if he did. And since the relationship between these entities is so indistinct, it also becomes difficult to unveil where the forgery proponents get lost. We need to know what Smith really is trying to say. The problem for me then is more of a pedagogic nature.

Of course this has already been quite thoroughly investigated by Scott Brown and Allan Pantuck. Brown showed in 2006 in Factualizing the Folklore: Stephen Carlson’s Case against Morton Smith, that the arguments presented by Stephen Carlson misrepresented what Smith actually wrote. And Pantuck made a similar rebuttal to the arguments presented by Craig Evans at the Toronto conference this year (basically the paper I am examining). So my attempt now will simply be a repetition of what previously has been elucidated by these two scholars.

Anyway, Evans’ claim that Smith published three studies where he made this connection; 1) in the 1951 English release of his Hebrew doctoral dissertation as Tannaitic Parallels to the Gospels, 2) in a “1955 review of Vincent Taylor’s commentary on the Gospel of Mark” and 3) in his article “The Image of God” from March 1958, just a few month before he made his discovery at Mar Saba.

1) Tannaitic Parallels to the Gospels (1951)

Smith’s dissertation was about Rabbinical (Tannaic) verbal parallels to Gospel material. Smith is comparing the Gospels to the Talmud, the Old Testament and so on. In the chapter referred to by Evans, Smith is in Allan Pantuck’s words “considering how the Gospels portray the words of Jesus in much the same way as the rabbis portray the words of the Law.” (Allan Pantuck, Reply to Evans, p. 2–3)

Evans then quotes the passage where Smith according to Evans links the mystery of the kingdom of God with secrecy and forbidden sexual activity. Like Stephan Carlson before him, Evans simply quoted those parts that would allow him to draw the conclusion he sought to find. He then continues …

I have quoted about one half of a lengthy paragraph. It is part of Smith’s discussion of human comprehension and what can and cannot be taught openly. The paragraph that has been partially quoted explores the idea that the early Church seems to have held to a doctrine of secrecy. Evidence of this, Smith thinks, is found in Mark 4:11, where Jesus explains to his disciples, “To you is given the mystery of the kingdom of God . . . ,” and in Paul, who says that he and other Christian leaders “speak wisdom among the perfect [or mature] . . . the wisdom of God in a mystery” (1 Cor 2:6–7).26 Following these two New Testament citations Smith suggests a comparison with the rabbinic distinction “between material suitable for public teaching and that reserved for secret teaching.” The secret teaching includes forbidden sexual relationships and Ezekiel’s vision of God’s chariot throne. The paragraph concludes with a further comparison with the Torah, which according to the rabbis was to be taught openly, and the teaching of heretics, which was to be taught secretly. Smith believes the evangelists Mark and John edited and presented the teaching of Jesus in response to this rabbinic teaching. (Craig Evans, Morton Smith and the Secret Gospel of Mark, p. 9)

So, according to Evans Smith suggested …

a) that the early Church held to a doctrine of secrecy,

b) a comparison with the rabbinic distinction “between material suitable for public teaching and that reserved for secret teaching.”

c) that the secret teaching includes forbidden sexual relationships and Ezekiel’s vision of God’s chariot throne.

But in order to more easily follow Smith’s train of thoughts, I will quote the entire pertinent passage from Smith’s book Tannaitic Parallels to the Gospels from 1951:

Further, I think the passage in Sifre on Deut. to have been based on the fact that an important part of primitive Christianity was a secret doctrine which was revealed only to trusted members. Such a doctrine is suggested by the words put in the mouth of Jesus, speaking to his disciples: ‘To you is given the mystery of the kingdom of God, but to those outside all things are in parables, that they may surely see and not perceive,’ etc. And Paul himself wrote in I Cor. 2.1–6 ‘and I, coming to you, brethren, came not proclaiming the testimony of God in lofty words or wisdom . . . that your faith might not be in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. But we speak wisdom among the perfect, and a wisdom not of this age . . . but we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery.’ A similar distinction was recognized by the Tannaïm between material suitable for public teaching and that reserved for secret teaching, as we learn from Hagigah T2.1 (233): ‘The (passages of the Old Testament dealing with) forbidden sexual relationships are not to be expounded to three (at a time,) but may be expounded to two; and the account of creation not to two, but it may be expounded to a single hearer; and (Ezekiel’s vision of) the chariot may not be expounded to a single hearer unless he be learned in the Law and of good understanding.’ In spite of this the composers of T L thought, as has been seen, that there was an important difference between the words of the Law, which were taught openly, and the teachings of the heretics, which were taught secretly. (Morton Smith, Tannaitic Parallels to the Gospels, 1951, p. 155–156)

Smith is not at all linking the mystery of the kingdom of God with forbidden sexual activity. What he is doing is showing that there is a difference between the outer teaching for the general audience and the inner teaching preserved for the disciples or a smaller group; and that this is true both among Christians and the Jewish rabbis. And while doing this he is providing examples to prove his point.

The Christian examples he takes from Mark 4:11: “To you is given “the mystery of the kingdom of God, but to those outside all things are in parables, that they may surely see and not perceive,” and from Paul, 1 Cor 2:1–6: “But we speak wisdom among the perfect, and a wisdom not of this age”.

Then Smith says that a “similardistinction was recognized by the Tannaïm between material suitable for public teaching and that reserved for secret teaching”. He is accordingly referring to a “similar distinction” between the inner and outer teaching made by the Jewish rabbis. Notice that he is only claiming that both Christians and Jews have a similar distinction between teaching meant for the people and teaching meant for a small group of chosen individuals. That is the point Smith wants to make and in order to do so, ha also exemplifies this from the Tannaic literature by referring to the Mishnaic tractate Hagigah 2.1, which Smith then quotes:

“The (passages of the Old Testament dealing with) forbidden sexual relationships are not to be expounded to three (at a time,) but may be expounded to two; and the account of creation not to two, but it may be expounded to a single hearer; and (Ezekiel’s vision of) the chariot may not be expounded to a single hearer unless he be learned in the Law and of good understanding.” (Morton Smith, Tannaitic Parallels to the Gospels, 1951, p. 155–156)

According to this text there are three subjects that could only be expounded to a few people: 1) Ezekiel’s vision of the chariot could only be expounded to a sage, 2) the account of creation (from Genesis) could only be expounded to a single hearer, and 3) the passages of the Old Testament dealing with forbidden sexual relationships could only be expounded to two hearers.

According to Smith this shows that also the rabbis made distinctions between inner and outer teaching. The fact that one of the tree examples in Hagigah happened to be about forbidden sexual relationships, was not the issue for Smith; it was the fact that it only could be expounded to a few. Smith did not link the mystery of the kingdom of God with the forbidden sexual relationships; he simply gave a few examples which would prove his point of similarities between the Tannaic and Christian teachings.

Incidentally, these “forbidden sexual relationships” refers to the Levitical laws from primarily the Book of Leviticus. And although homosexuality is one of the sexual activities that are forbidden, there are a vast number of other sexual behaviors which are equally forbidden; that is incest, sodomy, intercourse with a woman who has her period, or is married to another man, intercourse with an animal, castration and so on. Homosexuality is simply one of the forbidden sexual relationships referred to in that part of the Hagigah.

2) The 1955 review of Taylor’s commentary on Mark

Evans writes the following:

In his 1955 review of Vincent Taylor’s commentary on the Gospel of Mark Smith vigorously challenges Taylor’s denial that Mark 4:11 envisioned secret rites. Against Taylor, Smith reminds us that Mark represents Jesus “as teaching in secret and commanding secrecy on many occasions,” which is based on the “recollection that Jesus (also for a wide variety of reasons) practiced secrecy.” The first part of Smith’s statement will elicit no objection from those persuaded by William Wrede’s interpretation of Mark (wherein the point of secrecy was to hide the messianic identity of Jesus), but the second part of Smith’s statement is quite another matter. Jesus “practiced secrecy,” we are told, “for a wide variety of reasons.” What could Smith have had in mind? Could one of those reasons have had to do with teaching regarding prohibited sexual activities, as perhaps hinted at in his dissertation? And as hinted at in subsequent publications, not to mention his remarkable discovery at Mar Saba? (Craig Evans, Morton Smith and the Secret Gospel of Mark, p. 10–11)

I am quite surprised that Evans even tries to cast suspicion on Smith by alluding to this classical review by Smith.

Taylor claims that there “is no case” in “the NT, and especially in the Pauline Epp.” in which μυστήριον (mystêrion) “connotes secret rites or esoteric knowledge communicated to ‘initiates.’” Taylor then refers to Mark 4:11 and says that in this “passage and its parallels, it is used of a knowledge concerning the Kingdom of God which has been imparted to the disciples, but not to the people in general.” It is this assumption by Taylor to which Morton Smith is responding. He writes:

This looks self-contradictory, but perhaps T. intended to distinguish between ‘the disciples’ and ‘initiates,’ or some word such as ‘Elsewhere’ should be understood before the first sentence. However, the secrets to which μυστήριον refers in the rest of the NT are not always ‘open,’ e.g. 1 Cor. 2.6 f. (cf. 3.1–3); Col. 2.2; Eph. 5.32. In 1 Cor. Paul says plainly that there is a wisdom which he preaches among the ‘initiate’ (τελείοις), but which he cannot yet preach to the Corinthians because they are still ‘carnal.’ Paul, therefore, claimed to have a secret doctrine. As for Jesus, Mark, of course, represents him as teaching in secret and commanding secrecy on many occasions. The worst error of the ‘Messianic secret’ theories — as Cadbury has remarked — was that they tried to explain all or most of these occasions by reference to a single motive. Actually, the early Church had a wide variety of motives for attributing secret doctrine to Jesus, and among them may well have been the recollection that Jesus (also for a wide variety of motives) practiced secrecy. Every such attribution, therefore, must be judged individually. (Morton Smith, Comments on Taylor’s Commentary on Mark, HTR, Vol. 48, No. 1, Jan., 1955, p. 29)

As can be seen, Smith is never referring, or even alluding, to any prohibited sexual activities. That “the early Church had a wide variety of motives for attributing secret doctrine to Jesus, and among them may well have been the recollection that Jesus (also for a wide variety of motives [not “reasons”, as Evans quote Smith]) practiced secrecy”, does of course not imply that Smith “had in mind” a “teaching regarding prohibited sexual activities”. Why would he? He was simply responding to Taylor’s assertion that mystêrion (μυστήριον) never “connotes secret rites or esoteric knowledge communicated to ‘initiates” in the NT.

In fact Smith does not even think that the expression “the mystery of the Kingdom of God” was something Jesus originally said. Smith continues namely…

Mk. 4.11–12 is probably an answer to Jewish polemic. The Jews are saying, ‘Jesus was not the Messiah, because if he had been he would have been recognized by our scholars. He was heard and rejected.’ The Christian answer is, ‘They never heard his true teaching. He revealed the mysteries [sic!] of the Kingdom only to his disciples; for outsiders he had only parables. Thus he fulfilled God’s command to prevent the Jews from believing.’

So, if Smith did not think that Jesus taught the mystery of the Kingdom of God, but the Christians later invented that saying, how could he then have thought that this saying was a reference to secret sexual practices taught by Jesus? There is nothing in Smith’s review of Vincent Taylor’s commentary on the Gospel of Mark which suggests that Smith believed that the secrecy practiced by Jesus had anything to do with prohibited sexual activities; as Evans is suggesting.

3) The article “The Image of God” (March 1958)

This is what Evan says:

In an article that appeared in March of 1958, just a few months before Smith visited Mar Saba, Smith once again mentions the Hagigah passage from the Tosefta. This time, however, he also mentions Clement of Alexandria and cites his work Stromateis. This interesting article calls for a few more comments. Twice Smith mentions Hagigah, one time in reference to the story of the Jewish sage Aher, who “used the spiritual power acquired by his mystical esperience [sic!] to lead good Jews into heresy.” Smith mentions Hagigah a second time in reference to “the teaching about the throne of God,” which was “to be kept most secret of all.” Smith adds that this teaching “quite possibly was not committed to writing.” In a footnote to this final part of the statement Smith references Clement of Alexandria, where in Strom. 1.1.13–14 he discusses secrecy, the secret elements of Jesus’ teaching, and how it is incumbent on him (Clement) to omit some of the teaching, and to impart what teachings he thinks he is permitted to impart cautiously, lest his readers “stumble by taking them in a wrong sense.” Here we have echoed themes articulated in the paragraph from the 1951 dissertation quoted and discussed above.

It is quite difficult to follow Evans’ logic here. You have to study the footnotes, which I have not included in the quotation, in order to realize the connections Evans is trying to establish. According to Evans Smith mentions the tractate Hagigah twice. I don’t know what Evans wants to make out of the fact that Smith is saying that the “vegetable symbols originally outranked the astral” and that it “is probably older”; and then supports this statement with this footnote:

The symbolism persisted, of course, after the destruction of the Temple. When Aher entered paradise “ he cut down the plants ” , i.e. used the spiritual power acquired by his mystical experience to lead good Jews into heresy (T. Hag. 2.3, ed. Zuckermandel, p. 234). … (Morton Smith, The Image of God: Notes on the Hellenization of Judaism, with Especial Reference to Goodenough’s Work on Jewish Symbols,” BJRL 40 (1958): p. 505, n. 1)

This has nothing to do with anything Evans is intimating and it is not even referring to the same paragraph in Hagigah as the one dealing with forbidden sexuality.

The next reference to Hagigah is according to Evans “in reference to ‘the teaching about the throne of God,” which was ‘to be kept most secret of all.’” Evans then says that “[i]n a footnote to this final part of the statement Smith references Clement of Alexandria, where in Strom. 1.1.13–14 he discusses secrecy, the secret elements of Jesus’ teaching, and how it is incumbent on him (Clement) to omit some of the teaching, and to impart what teachings he thinks he is permitted to impart cautiously, lest his readers ‘stumble by taking them in a wrong sense.’” Evans believes that “we” thereby “have echoed themes articulated in the paragraph from the 1951 dissertation”. But is this really so? This is what Smith writes:

It is upon the tree of life that God rests when he comes to the Garden of Eden—on this rabbinic, pseudepigraphic, Christian and magical texts agree.(2) This legend, plus the fact that the tree of life is the symbol of the saint, enables us to understand the cryptic saying of Resh Laqish, “ The patriarchs, they are the throne of God “.(3) We should not expect this doctrine to be developed in the preserved rabbinic material, since the teaching about the throne of God is specified as that to be kept most secret of all,(4) and quite possibly was not committed to writing.(5)

Smith is simply supporting his view that “the throne of God” is to be kept secret by referring to Hagigah 2.1, where as we have seen the Mishna forbids any public teaching regarding Ezekiel’s vision of the chariot or the throne. It is true that Hagigah 2.1 also refers to all sorts of forbidden sexuality, but this is not what Smith is referring to in this case. It is amazing that someone can suggest that Smith is alluding to forbidden sexuality by referring to a certain passage, although he explicitly refers to another subject in that passage.

Smith then refers to (or cites) Clement, Stromata 1.1.13-14 etc., to support that this secret teaching was not committed to writing. That he chose Clement to support this idea is of course quite expected. As Scott Brown puts it:

Again, Smith was discussing secret doctrines, and Clement is the most obvious Christian example of the widespread philosophical attitude that the most profound doctrines should not be put in writing: (Scott G. Brown, Factualizing the Folklore: Stephen Carlson’s case against Morton Smith, HTR, July 1, 2006, p. 325)

But all this does of course not support anything of Evans’ suggestions. The mystery of the kingdom of God and Mark 4:11–12, are not mentioned; neither is any forbidden sexuality. The reference to Hagigah 2.1 is to another prohibition and not to sexuality. And just because this tractate happens to be in a footnote followed by a footnote reference to Clement of Alexandria, does not support that Smith linked them to each other.

Summary

Evans claim that Smith already before he made his discovery of the Clement letter with two extracts from a Secret Gospel of Mark in the summer of 1958, had expressed similar ideas as those found in Secret Mark. Apart from the fact that those elements are not found in Secret Mark, Smith never made the connections Evans is saying that he did. According to Evans:

Prior to the discovery of the Clementine letter at the Mar Saba Monastery Smith had published three studies (1951, 1955, 1958) in which he discusses (1) Mark 4:11 (“the mystery of the kingdom of God”), (2) secrecy and initiation, (3) forbidden sexual relationships, including union with a god, (4) omitted Markan material with Johannine traits, and (5) Clement of Alexandria, usually in reference to his Stromateis, who believed it was necessary to omit some of Jesus’ secret (potentially offensive) teaching. (Craig Evans, Morton Smith and the Secret Gospel of Mark, p. 14)

It is of course not a bit strange if a scholar who has studied both Christianity and Judaism, also in his writings has mentioned Mark 4:11–12 and the mystery of the kingdom of God, and secret teaching as well, since also this was part of his study field. But the point is if he made the connection between the elements Evans believes can be found in Secret Mark. And the answer is definitely no.

In his dissertation and book, the Tannaitic Parallels to the Gospels from 1951, he does not link the mystery of the kingdom of God with secrecy and forbidden sexual activity. He is simply showing that there is a difference between the outer teaching and the inner teaching and supporting this with examples to prove his point. Then he happened to chose Mark 4:11 as one of the Christian examples and Hagigah as the Jewish example to prove his point, and one of the subjects in that tractate was about all kinds of forbidden sexual relationships. That is all there is.

The 1955 review of Taylor’s commentary on Mark shows nothing at all. Smith is never referring, or even alluding, to any prohibited sexual activities. Evans’ belief that Smith would have alluded to “teaching regarding prohibited sexual activities” is totally unsupported.

And in his 1958 article “The Image of God”, Smith never even mentions the mystery of the kingdom of God, nor refers to any forbidden sexuality. He simply happened to put two footnotes next to each other, one referring to Clement where he suggest that not everything should be put in writing, and the Hagigah, where it said that the throne of God is to be kept secret.

Next, I will look into Evans’ suggestion that Smith would have supported the idea that Mark should have omitted material with Johannine traits and that this is also true regarding Secret Mark.

Craig A. Evans has written an article on the Clement letter including the Secret Gospel of Mark as being a forgery, Doubting Morton Smith and Secret Mark, which has been favourable received among the forgery proponents. This has also triggered a debate between James F. McGrath here and here, and Craig Evans here. At the end of his article Evans writes that the full text of his “York paper will be published under the editorship of Tony Burke and Phil Harland.” Since he at his homepage publishes the paper Morton Smith and the Secret Gospel of Mark: Exploring the Grounds for Doubt, which he says is a “Paper presented at a conference hosted by York University, Toronto, April 2011. To be published in conference volume”, I suppose that this is the York paper to be published.

Evans’ paper is some sort of summary of most of the arguments which are put forward as evidence that the Clement letter is a forgery and that Morton Smith is the forger. On the whole Evans’ arguments are a rehash and a repetition of arguments already put forward by Stephen Carlson, Francis Watson, Bart Ehrman and others. One could say that Evans’ paper makes a nice summary of all those arguments. I will therefore obviously not be able to answer and try to refute every single argument. This is on the other hand not necessary, since most of the arguments already have been met and often fairly thoroughly refuted by others and some also by me.

I will however concentrate on those issues on which Evans spends most of his time. He says that the reason why he views the find with grave suspicion is “that Smith possessed knowledge of distinctive elements of the Mar Saba find, prior to his finding it”:

“… what I find most troubling is that themes of interest to Professor Smith, as seen in his publications before the finding of the Clementine letter, are found in the Clementine letter. And these are not just themes of interest to Professor Smith, they are quite unusual themes and, apart from Professor Smith himself, they are themes advanced by no one else. In what follows two unusual themes will be explored: (1) The “mystery of the kingdom of God” and prohibited sex, and (2) Markan materials omitted from Mark that exhibit Johannine traits.” (p. 8)

I will begin with the “’mystery of the kingdom of God’ and prohibited sex”.

In order to make such a connection Evans need to show a) that Smith actually made a “linkage between secrecy and prohibited sex”, b) that such a linkage would be seen as something quite unusual and c) that the teaching of the mystery of the kingdom of God in Secret Mark has to do with prohibited sex, or sex whatsoever.

We can leave point b) aside, since the probability that Smith by chance would have dealt with issues he later were to discover are difficult to calculate and therefore to evaluate. But in order for Evans’ equation to work both a) and c) must be true. Because if Smith made no linkage between secrecy and prohibited sex, it makes no difference if the teaching of the mystery of the kingdom of God in Secret Mark would turn out to be about prohibited sex. And the other way around, if the mystery of the kingdom of God in Secret Mark has nothing to do with prohibited sex, it makes no difference if Smith would have linked secrecy with prohibited sex. As it turns out, neither of the assertions seem to be true.

Although, as I said, this paper by Evans constitutes a vast improvement compared to previous attempts by him, it still has logical fallacies and also factual errors on issues on which he should not, or even could not, be unaware of.

Already in the first paragraph Evans says the following:

“What makes the find controversial is that in one of the passages quoted from this Gospel Jesus teaches a naked young man the ‘mystery of the kingdom of God.’”

But you only need to have the ability to read in order to see that the young man is not naked:

“And after six days Jesus told him what to do and in the evening the youth comes to him, wearing a linen cloth over his naked body.”

As anyone who can read ought to be able to see, the youth is not naked as he wears a linen cloth. If you wear a linen cloth you are not naked. “He only wore a pair of trousers and a t-shirt over his naked body”. This means that he is dressed. One could of course argue that the youth intended to take off the linen cloth, but this will have to be a pure speculation built on no facts at all. And Evans does not even discuss this possibility, but simply asserts that the young man was naked. On top of this he also extends this assumption on page 27 to include Jesus as well, when he writes that “Jesus (in the nude?) instructs a new convert”. For sure he this time has a question mark, yet no discussion around the body of evidence for making such an assumption.

Now, one could say that this is just a trifle; some failed wording. But by saying that the youth was naked, Evans is actually dishonestly presenting something which is not true. The real problem here is though that this faulty assumption then forms the basis for much of his further conjectures.

Evans says that “forbidden sexual activities are hinted at throughout the Clementine letter, including and especially the first quotation of the longer edition of Mark”(p. 15–16). And it is correct that Clement is accusing Carpocrates for distorting the meaning of Secret Mark and the Carpocratians for dealing with carnal and bodily sins. But Clement also elsewhere in his unquestioned writings accuses the Carpocratians for these things, so this is nothing new. The real issue is what is said in the Secret Gospel of Mark, as this is where the mystery of the kingdom of God occurs. Evans (and others) can only make the connection if he can show that Jesus and the youth were indulging in some sex-act when Jesus was teaching the youth the kingdom of God. And there is nothing in the text that supports such a theory. The reasons for this are …

1) The excerpts from Secret Mark never say that there were any sexual activities between Jesus and the youth.

2) There is no example anywhere else, neither in Christian nor other writings, that the mystery of the kingdom of God would be a veiled expression for (forbidden) sex.

3) Jesus is also teaching the other disciples the mystery of the kingdom of God without anyone considering this to have anything to do with sexuality.

4) A youth wearing nothing but a linen cloth is also present in Mark 14:51–52, and the fact that he is stripped of his clothes, does not hint at (and has not been interpreted as) anything sexual.

5) The fact that the youth later is described as the one whom Jesus loved, does not imply anything sexual, as Jesus also elsewhere is said to have loved other people. And besides, the Greek word agapê, which primarily refers to Platonic love, is used.

6) Clement, who for certain represented the view among those in the Alexandrian Church where this Gospel was used, did not find anything sexual in the text. On the contrary, he quoted the passage in order for Theodoros to see the obvious himself.

So, even IF Smith would have linked the mystery of the kingdom of God to forbidden sexuality, this has no impact on Evans’ arguments since they are not linked in Secret Mark, and (homo)sexuality is no issue in the text.

When Stephen Carlson published his book The Gospel Hoax in 2005, it was said to be the ”Smoking Gun”, which not only would prove that Clement’s letter to Theodoros, containing excerpts from an otherwise unknown longer version of the Gospel of Mark was a forgery, but also that Morton Smith was the forger. Since then we have come a long way and most, if not every single, argument presented by Carlson has been refuted. In his Apocryphicity blog, Tony Burke gives his Reflections on the Secret Mark Symposium, part 2, and then writes the following regarding Charles Hedrick’s speech:

“Hedrick also dismisses Stephen Carlson’s arguments as “less-than-circumstantial evidence”—indeed, very little of Carlson’s evidence, which has been effectively countered by Scott Brown, Allan Pantuck, and Roger Viklund, was discussed during the day, and it seems to have been abandoned even by those who argue against the text’s authenticity.”

The thing that strikes me the most is the fact that Carlson’s arguments, which were the arguments said to beyond any reasonable doubt prove that the letter was a forgery, now has “has been effectively countered”, and that to an extent that “it seems to have been abandoned even by those who argue against the text’s authenticity”. Yet, there is still no change in the opinion among the forgery advocators. Although all the previous arguments which were considered to be the strongest have been refuted and abandoned, they have just been replaced with new arguments, or to be more precise, with some of the same arguments rehashed. It seems like the hub around which everything turns is that the letter is a forgery and that Smith forged it. Every single clue leading in this direction, no matter how small a spot of, is used in order to show that Smith forged the text. And when those arguments are demolished one by one, they are just replaced by yet other weak proposals that Smith forged it anyway.

Burke tells us about Charles Hedrick’s paper:

“As part of his paper, Hedrick discusses the statement on the text issued by paleographer Agamemnon Tselikas and some reflections on an interview Hedrick conducted with Tselikas. What is striking about Tselikas’ comments is that they seem at variance with even the evidence he cites—i.e., the text was written in an 18th-century Greek hand, which could not be executed by Smith himself, yet Smith is identified as the forger, having brought the manuscript from another monastery during his travels in Greece as a secret agent working for the US and/or Britain (!).”

This is also a striking example of the same method. The “text was written in an 18th-century Greek hand, which could not be executed by Smith himself, yet Smith is identified as the forger.” I mean, Anastasopoulou’s verdict strongly suggest that Smith could not have written the text himself. This was apparently further strengthened by Allan Pantuck on the conference. In Report on Secret Gospel of Mark Symposium Pt 3, Ryan Wettlaufer summarizes Allan Pantuck’s speech, where …

“he wanted to show how Smith’s life would have left him ill-equipped to create a forgery like sm. For example, Pantuck showed several personal letters wherein Smith lamented his poor Greek skills. He confirmed this with personal writings of other scholars who commented on Smith’s poor Greek skills. These poor skills, Pantuck argued, mean that Smith could not have had the ability to compose a fake letter of Clement.”

Under normal circumstances, one would think that this would lead to at least some consideration among the forgery proponents. But not really. Instead some seem to say that if Smith did not write the text in his own hand he must have had a collaborator – because, as you know, he still must have been the forger. This is how Burke summarizes the present opinion based on Anastasopoulou’s report:

“Her conclusions seem to be universally accepted; no-one at the symposium seems to claim now that Smith personally wrote the text. Even Tselikas agrees with this assessment, believing that Smith had someone from another monastery write it for him.”

But then, who would have composed the text? If Smith did not have the ability to write in a fluid Greek 18th century style, which Anastasopoulou has convincingly shown, and if Smith had such “poor Greek skills”, which both Smith and his colleagues according to Pantuck confirmed – who then composed the letter? Smith not only had insufficient training for writing in this elaborated hand, his skills were not good enough in order to compose the Greek text. It is a huge difference between being able to fairly good read a language and to be able to compose a letter imitating the style of an ancient writer who had Greek as his native language. If Smith would have had a collaborator then this person not only would have had to be excellently skilled in writing this difficult 18th century Greek handwriting, he (or she) would also have had to compose the actual text of Clement (and of Mark). If your skills in Greek are poor, then it is almost a superhuman task to imitate a letter of Clement. I am sure it is no problem for anyone with English as their native language to realize that I do not have English as my native language. So we then end up with a collaborator of Smith who not only wrote the actual text but also must have composed the letter. And if so, what need is there for Smith at all?

And if it is not a modern forgery, then at least it should be an ancient forgery, some argue. Hedrick’s reply to this was interesting. He referred to the endings later made (but not that much later) to the Gospel of Mark (16:9–20), and said that they …

“are not particularly ‘Markan’ in style, so perhaps ‘Mark later emended his own text—just as Clement said!’”

I was also pleased to notice that Burke makes the same objection as I do on Craig Evans’ dishonesty when presenting the material. Burke says the following about Evans’ presentation:

“He writes that in the gospel ‘Jesus teaches a naked young man’ (but the youth is not naked) and later ‘Jesus in the nude instructs a young convert’ (nor is Jesus nude). Such flustering over a ‘gay Jesus’ is reminiscent of the controversy over Tinky-winky, the gay Teletubbie, and the unsavoury relationship between Spongebob and Patrick. These all seem to reflect the anxieties of the viewer/reader and have little basis in reality. Evans also notes along the way some other dubious arguments for forgery: the presence of mildew and mold spots on the manuscript (all we have are photographs; the nature of these “spots” cannot be determined), the forger’s tremor (which is not apparent in the better photographs), and Carlson’s report from a professional handwriting expert (which has been shown to have been edited to strengthen his position).”

I consider Evans to be very ill-informed on this subject, and he actually does not work as a scholar in this area as he is presenting outright falsehoods and also continues to put forward arguments that already have been shown to be faulty. I cannot see how he by now could be ignorant of this, and the only conclusion that can be made from this is that he is using the arguments for apologetic reasons only.

Burke tells us that he “had no firm view about Secret Mark’s authenticity” when he went to the symposium:

“Now that the symposium has concluded, I am convinced Smith did not create the text; rather, he found it at Mar Saba exactly as he claimed.”

He also reports on the audience’s opinion:

“By the end of the morning, the argument for forgery seemed to be convincing many of the audience members at the symposium. The coincidences that were unsettling Evans were unsettling others also. But the afternoon session included a paper that swung opinion toward authenticity, and convinced me once and for all that Smith did not, indeed could not, have forged the text.”

“As it turns out, Secret Mark was an elaborate hoax created by Morton Smith himself.” (David Alan Black i kapitlet ”Mark 16:8 as the Conclusion to the Second Gospel” i boken Perspectives on the Ending of Mark: Four Views, 2008, s. 32)

“In fact, recent analysis reveal the typical ‘forger’s tremor’, throughout the document, as well as well as well as characteristics of Morton Smith’s Greek handwriting style, convincing many that Smith himself was the forger.” (Craig S. Keener, The Historical Jesus of the Gospels: Jesus in Historical Context, 2009, s. 60)

Och Evans fortsätter:

“Indeed, some scholars have suggested that Secret Mark may help us nuance the solution of the Synoptic problem, and, of course, some scholars have suggested that Secret Mark is older and more original than public Mark. The sad thing is that all this labor has been misspent; the Clementine letter and the quotations of Secret Mark embedded within it constitute a modern hoax, and Morton Smith almost certainly is the hoaxer. … Magnification of the handwritten text reveals the telltale presence of what handwriting experts call the “forger’s tremor”. That is, the handwriting in question is not really written; it is drawn, in the forger’s attempt to imitate a style of writing not his own. These telltale signs are everywhere present in the alleged Clementine letter.” (Craig A. Evans, ”How Scholars Fabricate Jesus” i William Lane Craig (ed.), “Contending with Christianity’s Critics: Answering New Atheists and Other Objectors, 2007, s. 143-144)

Andreas J. Köstenberger skriver följande:

“S. C. Carlson has recently written the most extensive examination of the authenticity of the letter of Clement and has produced compelling evidence supporting the suspicion that M. Smith created the text as part of a scholarly hoax. … Second, certain characteristics of the script of the Clementine letter suggest that it is a twentieth century forgery. (1) The script bears signs of unnatural hesitations in the penstrokes that are consistent with the forger’s tremor as well as pen lifts and signs of retouching that suggest that the characters were drawn rather than written. The characters also are inconsistently formed. (2) The script is dissimilar in several ways from that of other eighteenth century manuscripts produced at Mar Saba … (3) The script is identical to that of another Mar Saba manuscript, manuscript 22, which Smith himself claimed was produced by a twentieth century person whom he identified as M. Madiotes.” (Andreas J. Köstenberger, The Cradle, the Cross, and the Crown: An Introduction to the New Testament, 2009, s. 134)

“The whole writing shows freedom, spontaneity and artistic flair. It also shows a skilful penmanship of a well educated and trained writer who uses the language effectively in expressing his thoughts”. (s. 13)

“… the Greek words are written letter-letter as copy book at a lower speed, without ease and the range of variations is very limited. His writing is like that of a school student. It is obvious that his hand is not familiarised in Greek writing so as to be able to use it freely and with ease and be able to express thoughts and beliefs.” (s. 18)

”It is my professional opinion that the writers of the questioned document of ‘Secret Mark’ on the document listed as Q1, Q2 an Q3 and Morton Smith’s handwriting on the documents listed as K1 – K27, are most probably not the same.
Therefore it is highly probable that Morton Smith could not have simulated the document of ‘Secret Mark’.”

Roger Viklunds blogg

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